Day: December 3, 2017

I finally made the switch from adblock plus to ublock origin. I haven’t been 100% happy with ABP for a while, the process for adding filters wasn’t straightforward and they kept letting facebook ads through. Perhaps more of a fb issue rather than eeyo’s, but for the end user, it’s all the same.

uBlock origin overtook ABP around 1-2 years ago in terms of functionality and success in blocking ads. There’s still a lot of discussion about which is better. ABP is a more recognised brand, and most newbies stick to it. uBO appeals to the more technical minded.

The long and short of it is, both are good. And whichever one the user picks, is better than no adblocker at all. The more compelling arguments for uBO:

lighter strain on CPU and RAM

more available filter lists

ABP has better UI but uBO has more functionalities for techies to customise

opensource and a developer who isn’t out to make money by offering advertisers a place on the whitelist in exchange for payment

I used it out of the box and it’s more or less the same as ABP for most websites. Where there was a difference, was on fb. I use fb much less than before and when I’m on I’ve been battling ads, sponsored posts and the “people you may know” stupidity, but wasn’t able to get the filters right in ABP. uBO gave me 2 straightforward ways of handling them, the easiest is to enable Adguard filters. For the odd annoyance that slipped through, adding the fiter is so intuitive. Click on the element picker eyedropper, highlight the whole element and create the filter. uBO also handled blocking the right column better, as in I was able to block the entire right column vs in ABP that caused the css to go funny.

Seriously, if you don’t have an adblocker, get one. All those arguments that adblocking is evil and all that is rubbish and selfish. Those people do not have the users’ best interests in mind at all.

p.s. yes I know about fb purity, I want an add-on that can handle ads and annoyances outside fb too.